A Look At The New Oil Well Being Drilled By Talos Energy And Its Partners

For about 80 years the only entity that has been able to build and operate offshore oil wells off the coast of Mexico has been the state-owned monopoly, Petroleos Mexicanos. That only changed in 2017 when Mexico allowed a partnership of private companies the opportunity to drill a new well within their waters.

The new well is being drilled by a joint venture that was established by three different companies. There are two foreign companies in the partnership, Talos Energy LLC which is headquartered in Houston, Texas, and Premier Oil Plc which is based in London, UK. There is also a Mexican company as a private company in the partnership, Sierra Oil & Gas.

The new offshore drilling well is called Zama1. It is located in the Sureste Basin which is located off the shore of Tobasco, one of the states that make up Mexico. Estimates for the amount of oil located in this region range from 100 million to 500 million barrels of crude oil. The drilling of the well, which is costing Premier $16 million, will likely take three months to complete.

Each company in the partnership has a different role to play and stake in the joint venture. While Premier is drilling the well, Talos Energy will operate in it. In the joint venture Talos Energy has a 35% stake, Premier a 25% stake, and Sierra has a 40% stake.

Talos Energy was started with $600 million in equity by various financial backers in 2012. It is a privately held company that focuses on the Gulf of Mexico. They are involved in both exploration of new oil wells as well as acquiring the oil and natural gas from offshore wells.

There are a number of executives at Talos Energy with years of experience in the oil and gas industry. Among these is Tim Duncan who, along with his business partners, founded the company. Another top executive is Ash Shepherd who is the company’s commercial manager. Shepherd was honored in 2016 as one of the Thirty Under 40 which is a list of business leaders who have achieved great success before the age of 40.